Cassette Mate turns your old tape recordings into MP3s

If you’re anything like me, then the transition to CD for music was a fantastic event many years ago. The music sounded better, switching between tracks was a breeze, and the discs were a lot more hard wearing than cassette tapes.

But in making the transition I was also left with a lot of old tapes, both commercial music tapes and blanks I had used to record the radio. You may even have some with memorable recordings on made by yourself that you just couldn’t get on CD.

Mine have been in a box gathering dust ever since CDs arrived, but now there is a very cheap and simple way to save the audio they hold. Japanese gadget maker Thanko has created a cassette tape to MP3 converter that takes the form of an old portable tape player like the old Walkmans.

It is called the Cassette Mate and connects to a PC through a USB port. An included piece of software then gives you a range of options for recording the audio as the tape plays and stores it on your hard drive as an MP3 file. It even detects the pause between songs and splits them up into tracks if desired.

While most of your old tapes might not be worth saving, I bet there’s a few that are. The good news is the Cassette Mate only costs $30 and runs off of 2 AA batteries, so even for a couple of tape recordings it’s not going to break the bank.

The only thing this device is missing is the ability to plug some headphones in and use it as a conventional portable player. It certainly has a nice retro look about it, so it’s a shame Thanko didn’t think to include that as a feature.

Speak Your Mind

http://abbyladybug.tumblr.com Abby

I’m REALLY into this. I have a TON of cassettes that I’d like to convert. Question is, How safe/reliable is it to order from this web site, given that (1) It’s in Japanese and a foreign country and (2) that country is where that where was just a massive disaster (and apparently subsequent aftershocks/earthquakes). Thoughts?

http://abbyladybug.tumblr.com Abby

I’m REALLY into this. I have a TON of cassettes that I’d like to convert. Question is, How safe/reliable is it to order from this web site, given that (1) It’s in Japanese and a foreign country and (2) that country is where that where was just a massive disaster (and apparently subsequent aftershocks/earthquakes). Thoughts?

http://abbyladybug.tumblr.com Abby

I’m REALLY into this. I have a TON of cassettes that I’d like to convert. Question is, How safe/reliable is it to order from this web site, given that (1) It’s in Japanese and a foreign country and (2) that country is where that where was just a massive disaster (and apparently subsequent aftershocks/earthquakes). Thoughts?